


Fall In, Fallout

by tielan



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hazing, Race, Racism, warning: an epithet common to the time period is used
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:39:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7720378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sometimes it’s not being the only brother that makes the difference. Sometimes it’s the company you fall in with. Caterpillars and all.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall In, Fallout

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



It took two of them to haul him out of bed and dump him on the shower floors.

“Think you’re as good as the rest of us, hey?”

Nick had guessed this was coming from the moment ‘lights out’ were declared in the dorm. The heavy shoves and scowling looks as they walked through the hall had confirmed what the others had planned for him after dark, so he guessed what was coming the instant he felt the tiles against his side.

Didn’t mean he was _ready_ for the vicious white light of the communal showers, or the burst of chilly water that washed over him. But he knew what was happening, had mentally prepared himself to fight from the moment he fell asleep, and he didn’t squeal.

Instead, Nick acted.

He looped an arm around the neck of one of the guys who held him – Clary - and threw himself back onto the floor, tossing the guy over his head – and into the wall. The howl was everything he could have hoped for, and he rolled to the side and set his back against the wall. There’d be no quarter and he couldn’t count on a rescue. But if they were going to take him out – and there were too many of them for him to fight solo – then he was going to give an accounting of himself that they’d remember.

Mitcham rushed him first, smashing a fist into the wall when Nick dodged and howling with pain. Then two more ran in to hold him down, cowards that they were, and Clary stumbled over, flipping wet hair out of his eyes, his gaze rabid as a crazy dog. “You’re going to regret that, nigger!”

One punch, two— Nick kicked up, getting his knee under Clary and shoving him back. Then he rolled, loosening the grips of the two holding him down. He got one hand free and punched Dodsell in the nose, before rebounding into Anderson. Sure, it hurt like hell, but it was _something—_

“What the fuck is going on here?” The sonorous roar filled the room, and the tramp of boots wasn’t encouraging. “Atten-hut!”

The recruits scrambled to stand at attention, their striped pyjamas sticking to legs and arms where they’d gotten wet.

Nick rolled over and hauled himself up by the shower wall before turning to face the music. He had no expectation of a fair trial – after all, it would be a dozen white boys against the word of a n—

He noticed the stiff and precise stances of the other guys first. Then he looked at the two men who stood in the doorway. Their hands rested casually on their hips, their expressions sharp as they surveyed the room and the recruits who stood there in various states of sodden.

“So,” said the big, bluff one, who wore – incongruously for this time of night – a bowler hat on his head. “Anyone want to be the first to tell me what’s going on here?”

Nick met the gaze of Dum Dum Dugan, then looked Gabe Jones in the eye. Maybe there _was_ a God after all.

Clary cleared his throat. “Just a bit of fun, sir.”

“A bit of fun, eh?” Dugan smiled, affable and avuncular. “Well, boys will be boys, I see – Clary, isn’t it? Don Clary?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How old are you, Don Clary?”

“Uh. Twenty-one, sir.”

“So, old enough to drink. Old enough to drive a car. Old enough to go to war...” He trailed off, arching an inquisitive eyebrow at Clary.

“Got a special dispensation, sir. On account of joining the SSR.”

“Right. So, Clary, if you’re old enough to go to war, then you’re not actually a _boy_ , are you?”

Clary opened his mouth. Thought the better of what he was going to say and what it might unleash. Closed it.

“Nick Fury.”

He stepped forward, choosing to take up position at ease rather than at attention. It wasn’t insolence, it was the acknowledgement that this wasn’t the goddamn parade ground, and he could show respect without being a bootlicker. “Sir.”

“Would you care to weigh in on this matter?”

All the options that involved opening his mouth were pretty bad. Nick chose the least bad of the lot. “Don’t see as I need to, sir. You’ve got eyes.” And an open mind, he hoped, or else why would Jones be there with him?

“Good answer. Clever man.” Dugan took a step forward and looked around the room. “ _Boys_ play pranks. _Boys_ gang up on those their boyish little minds can’t handle. _Men_ take the hand they’re dealt, and they make good on it. And _men_ who are recruited for the Reserve don’t judge a man by the color of his skin or the caterpillar on his upper lip. Right, Gabe?”

“It’s a damned ugly caterpillar,” said Jones with the hint of a smirk. “But I respect you and that it’s attached to you.”

“Good to know.” 

The easy camaraderie made it quite clear that Dugan considered Jones not only a friend, but an equal. Nick watched several of the boys shift, discomforted as Dugan did another look around the room, his gaze pinning the recruits one by one. “Now, it’s three in the morning and no time for boys or men to be out of their beds, let alone bloodying up the showers for ‘a bit of fun’, I believe you said, Clary?”

Clary’s face was the color of ripe watermelon, and he opened his mouth several times before closing it again.

“So, scramble for bed, you lot. Except for Fury. You’re coming with Jones and me.”

Nick followed them out of the showers and the dorms and hoped that the threat of authority would be sufficient to keep the guys from pissing in his bedclothes. He wouldn’t put it past them.

As Dugan pulled the door shut behind them, Jones turned to face Nick, studying him with a measured look of the kind Nick used to get from the next door neighbour, Pete Lewis when he caught Nick coming home after a fight.

“You were expecting this, weren’t you?”

“Something like it, sir,” Nick allowed. “I didn’t count on being the only brother, though.”

Jones glanced at Dugan. “Sometimes it’s not being the only brother that makes the difference. Sometimes it’s the company you fall in with. Caterpillars and all.”

“Ah, shut your mouth, Jonesy.” Dugan planted his feet and studied Fury. “Tonight’ll be noted down on their records. It’s not a black mark, exactly, but it’s a very dark smudge. Even past civil rights, I figure a man’s entitled to a fair fight. We’re not going to step in every time, though – and, I suspect, you don’t need us to. But this’ll put a halt on their behaviour – at least for the first week.”

“A week works fine for me.”

Jones grinned, and there was devilry in the smirk. “Of that I have no doubt. Dismissed.”

“Sir. Thank you, sir.”

Jones gave him a nod, brother to brother. “Make it count, Fury.”

 


End file.
